Intentionally Viewing Child Sexual Abuse Material on a Phone Is Possession: Commonwealth v. Walrond (AC 24-P-710, October 6, 2026)

Charles Walrond searched for teenage pornography on his phone while on probation for possessing child sexual abuse material. When a probation officer seized his phone and a forensic examiner analyzed it, the examiner found more than forty images and five videos of child sexual abuse material stored in the phone’s browser and messaging app caches. Walrond argued that he never intentionally viewed those images, that they could have been automatically downloaded without his knowledge. The Superior Court found him in violation of his probation condition prohibiting possession of child sexual abuse material. The Appeals Court affirmed, holding that intentionally viewing such material on a phone constitutes possession.

The Facts

In August 2021, police executed a search warrant at Walrond’s apartment and found computer folders containing child sexual abuse materials. He pleaded guilty in September 2022 to possession and dissemination under G. L. c. 272, §§ 29B and 29C, receiving three years of probation. His conditions required that he not possess any images or videos of child sexual abuse material, not contact anyone under eighteen, and allow probation to inspect his phone and laptops for such images.

A year later, a probation officer obtained Walrond’s phone and gave it to Boston police. After getting a search warrant, a detective used Cellebrite forensic software to extract the phone’s contents. The browser history showed visits to numerous pornography sites, including two entries titled “Vteen videos nude video xxx porn self,” one dated the day the probation officer seized the phone. The phone contained approximately 2,900 files with nudity and 1,400 upskirt images. Forty images and five videos appeared to be child sexual abuse material. The detective confirmed that three images and two videos were definitively child sexual abuse materials.

All forty-five files sat in the Chrome browser cache and the Telegram messaging app cache. A cache stores data from visited sites to speed up future access. The detective explained that files in the cache do not prove that a user clicked on, enlarged, or otherwise controlled them. Files sent through Telegram or posted in a Telegram chat room the user visited would appear in the cache. The detective was uncertain whether a user needed to see an image for it to land in the cache.

The Defense Theory

Walrond’s expert testified that Telegram automatically downloads all images and videos posted in a chat room to the cache, whether or not the user clicks on or views them. If a user viewed a long webpage, all images on the page might be cached even if the user never scrolled down to see them, depending on browser programming and settings. Most browsers let users manually clear the cache; some browsers automatically clear items after thirty days if left alone. Telegram does not clear its cache automatically. If a user clicked on an image, the expert said, a thumbnail would be created. The forensic report found no thumbnails at all.

The Superior Court’s Ruling

Judge Rayburn found that Walrond possessed child sexual abuse materials, violating his probation. She based her finding on the presence of the materials on his device combined with his clear search for teenage pornography. She did not revoke his probation but extended it to its original end date with a new condition: no pornography at all. Walrond appealed. (He later stipulated to another violation in December 2024, apparently also related to sexual images, but eventually completed his probationary term.)

The Intentional Viewing Question

The Appeals Court first addressed whether the evidence supported a finding that Walrond intentionally viewed the child sexual abuse materials. The defense expert testified that under certain circumstances images could be saved to the cache without being viewed. The judge was free to disbelieve that expert, but the detective offered no affirmative evidence to the contrary. Still, the judge did not rely on cached images alone. She pointed to Walrond’s searches for teenage pornography, combined with the child sexual abuse material in his cache, to infer intent and possession.

The court found this inference permissible. While theoretically an image at the bottom of a long webpage or in a chat room could be cached without being viewed, it seems unlikely that a mainstream website would contain child sexual abuse material only at the bottom of a page, or that someone in an ordinary chat room would unexpectedly post such material. It is particularly unlikely that Walrond would unknowingly obtain more than forty-five such files, especially when cache storage is not indefinite and the browser cache typically clears within thirty days.

More important, Walrond’s two browser history entries for “Vteen videos nude video xxx porn” powerfully rebutted any innocent explanation. His purposeful search for videos of nude teenagers undermined his theory that he unknowingly received child sexual abuse materials while looking for adult pornography. The court drew an analogy to Commonwealth v. Kendrick, 446 Mass. 72 (2006), where a defendant barred from contact with minors participated in an antique car show where children were predictably present. The SJC upheld the violation finding because the defendant failed to remove himself from proximity to children and his actions encouraged them to interact with him. Any doubt was dispelled by the similarity to his prior offenses. Here, Walrond had child sexual abuse materials in his cache, searched for teenage pornography, and had a prior conviction for possessing such material. The judge reasonably found by a preponderance that he intentionally viewed the materials.

Does Viewing Equal Possession?

The probation condition prohibited possession, not viewing. Walrond argued that intentionally viewing materials on a phone does not constitute possession. The court broke new ground, holding that it does. Massachusetts case law had not addressed the question, but federal courts have considered it at length under the pre-2008 version of 18 U.S.C. § 2252A(a)(5)(B), which did not explicitly prohibit accessing child sexual abuse material with intent to view it.

In United States v. Ramos, 685 F.3d 120, 132 (2d Cir. 2012), the Second Circuit held that viewing child sexual abuse materials on a computer granted the user control over them, supporting a possession finding. An individual who views images on the internet accepts them onto his computer and can still exercise dominion and control over them, even in cache files. The defendant there could view images on his screen, leave them on screen as long as his computer was on, copy and attach them to an email, print them, and move them from cache to other files with the right software.

The Ninth Circuit in United States v. Romm, 455 F.3d 990, 998 (9th Cir. 2006), held that a jury could find possession when a defendant enlarged images on his screen and viewed them for five minutes before deleting them. In the electronic context, a person can receive and possess child sexual abuse material without downloading it if he seeks it out and exercises dominion and control over it. While images were displayed and stored to the hard drive, the defendant had the ability to copy, print, or email them.

The Eighth Circuit in United States v. Kain, 589 F.3d 945, 950 (8th Cir. 2009), compared a computer user who intentionally accesses such images on a website to a person who intentionally browses them in a print magazine. Both knowingly possess the images, even if the magazine reader later puts it down without buying it.

The Colorado Supreme Court in Marsh v. People, 389 P.3d 100, 110 (Colo. 2017), held that when a computer user seeks out and views child sexual abuse material on the internet, he possesses the images he views.

The Appeals Court adopted this reasoning. A person intentionally viewing child sexual abuse materials on electronic devices possesses those materials. Just as a person possessing a magazine has the ability to control the images in it, a person possessing a mobile phone has the ability to control the images summoned to the screen. A person intentionally possesses only those images that person knew about and intended to view. The evidence here supported the judge’s finding that Walrond willfully violated his probation by intentionally viewing the materials.

Why It Matters

The decision settles a question of first impression in Massachusetts: intentionally viewing child sexual abuse material on a phone constitutes possession for probation purposes. The holding has immediate practical consequences for probation officers, defense counsel, and judges crafting probation conditions. The court noted that more specific conditions (such as prohibiting viewing in addition to possessing) would have made this case easier. As the case progressed, judges did modify Walrond’s conditions to prohibit viewing any pornography at all and possessing any images of persons younger than seventeen.

The court left open whether the same evidence sufficient to prove possession by a preponderance in a probation hearing would suffice to prove criminal possession beyond a reasonable doubt under G. L. c. 272, § 29C. It also noted that a probation violation can be based on possession of some child sexual abuse materials, while a criminal prosecution may require proof that the defendant possessed particular images, a harder task. Those questions await another day.

Read the full opinion: Commonwealth v. Walrond (AC-24-P-710, October 6, 2026).